


they can't take what's ours

by winterwind



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-03
Updated: 2012-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-20 04:33:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 8,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/581343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterwind/pseuds/winterwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're all just stories in the end, but Tony will be damned if theirs isn't the best you've ever heard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Timing

**Author's Note:**

> I'm following the Klaine Advent Calendar, but I'm doing it for Stony because I can. Tis the season!
> 
> Each chapter stands alone. They all fit the same story verse, but they're not meant to be read in any specific order.

The timing’s never right, not really. Dinner reservations always have to be cancelled because of super villains, teammates always walk in the room at the least convenient time, hell, sometimes Tony’s own bots get in his way, like that time Dummy set his lab on fire. (Okay, that was actually Tony’s fault, but Dummy hadn’t helped.)

So all in all, Tony’s been walking around with this ring in his pocket for a solid three months now and he’s starting to get anxious. Not so much about the marriage thing, he’d had that freak out (and subsequent calm down with Bruce) before he’d bought the ring. So he’d bought the ring and he was determined to at least ask Steve if he wanted it, but everything loved to get in the way.

Like Doom. Fucking Doom.

It’s the middle of a fight and Tony is pissed off and not used to waiting for what he wants and Doom is as annoying as ever and he kind of just—

“Hey, Steve, we should do the getting married thing.”

“What?” he hears Steve say over the comm.

“Stark!” Clint yells, firing an arrow at one of Doom’s cronies.

“Shut it, Barton. I’m serious, I have a ring and everything.”

“And you think now is the best time to ask this?” Steve says drily, throwing his shield in a perfect arc to knock Doom off balance.

“Well, I’ve made enough plans to get through the alphabet plus some, you can ask Bruce, seriously, so I figure that trying for the perfect moment or even a good moment is probably never going to happen, so what the hell?” Tony fires a few repulsor beams at Natasha’s pursuers.

“Well, alright then.”

“Wait, alright then to my logic or to getting married?”

“Both.”

Tony swoops through the air in a way that’s totally helpful for taking Doom down and not showy at all.

“Hey, guys, Steve and I are getting married.”

“We heard,” Clint says flatly, sending an arrow just shy of Tony’s right shoulder in congratulation.

“As thrilled and unsurprised as I am by this turn of events, we should probably concentrate on taking Doom down before we discuss flower arrangements,” Natasha says in her disinterested way.

“Mood killers,” Tony retorts.

“Iron Man, your five o’clock,” Steve calls.

“I love you too.”


	2. History

The summer Steve turns fifteen, he and Bucky go to Coney Island for a day trip. As a joke and to escape the sweltering heat of the bright sun, they duck into a psychic’s tent. It’s dark and perfumed and Steve can barely see a young woman sitting at a table a little way. She beckons them over and they sit across from her, their view lightened by candles. She is beautiful and she has a hint of an accent Steve can’t quite identify. Not German, French maybe. For a dime, she’ll read their palms, tell them their future. The future’s a murky territory, terrifying and uncertain. Bucky elbows him in the ribs and they each hand over five cents.

Bucky reaches his hand out first, his eyes bright and defiant. She takes them gently and after a moment, she begins to speak. She says he comes from a family of fighters, that he continues that tradition, that there is war in his blood and a bravery that many men long for too. She says he will make the right choices in all the wrong situations and that he will be lost, but only for a small while, and he will find a woman with hair like fire that will change everything. Bucky blinks and swallows and takes his hand back gingerly, his sharp eyes fierce.

She turns to Steve and reaches out her hands. He places his hand in hers and she stares at it for a moment before her eyes turn sympathetic. Her voice is soft as she tells of his lost family, his brave, harsh father and his warm, sweet mother, of people who are cruel and shallow. She speaks of inner strength and a keen eye and a need to prove himself, of bombs, of a ragtag group of misfits and outcasts who would follow him across the world and back, of two sets of brilliant brown eyes and a razor sharp wit that would destroy and create. She hesitates before adding, “It is in your greatest misery that you will find your greatest happiness.”

He nods and she gives him a sad smile and he and Bucky leave. Outside, Bucky laughs it off, pulling Steve into a headlock and ruffling his hair, making up crazy characters for Steve to lead into battle. Steve laughs along, but he can’t seem to brush it off as easy as Bucky does.

70 years and a lifetime later, he still hasn’t forgotten what she said. He’s pretty sure this is the greatest misery a person can ever experience, alone and surrounded by a home that’s now unrecognizable. He beats the hell out of punching bag, hits for Bucky, Peggy, Dr Erskine, Col. Phillips, the Howling Commandos, every damn person he’s lost, every damn face he can’t forget, but it doesn’t help and more nights than not, he winds up curled around himself wishing he’d never woken up at all.

He goes back to Coney Island one day to see if there’s anything familiar left that he can cling to. As he walks, he finds a tiny shop with a beautiful young woman sitting at a table where that tent used to be and he’s compelled to go in. It smells exactly the same as the tent and he wonders how that can be. The woman looks up at him and smiles.

“Would you like to know your fate?” she says with a sly little smile. He opens his mouth and hesitates, just for a moment, before nodding and sitting down.

Suddenly, a door he’d barely noticed opens and a frail looking old woman opens the door, looking first to the girl before she takes Steve in and her mouth falls open.

“I will help this man,” she says and her granddaughter sends a dark, disappointed look her way before standing and letting the old woman take her place.

She looks the same, though older. Her eyes are still soft and kind, filled with the mysteries of life that Steve will never understand.

“You told me I would find my greatest joy in my greatest misery,” he says and she nods. “Was that false hope?”

She shakes her head. “History and fate don’t always see eye to eye. Soon, you will understand.”

He doesn’t for a long time. He isolates himself and turns his unhappiness into unwarranted hostility and this makes him even unhappier, that he is the cause of the flash of hurt behind brilliant eyes. There is no time for apologies. There is a world to be saved and somehow by the grace of God or fate or history or anything, the misfits and loners he’s met in this century band together and trust him to make the right calls and they prevail against impossible odds. For the first time since waking up in a white room that seems so fake and so wrong, he feels a glimmer of hope.

And one day much later, long after those once cold eyes melt to chocolate brown, when Steve leans down and kisses Tony Stark and Tony Stark kisses him back, he finally understands.


	3. Hideaway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short fill is short.

They all have their ways of coping. Clint shoots until his fingers bleed. Bruce isolates himself and mediates. Tony flees to his workshop and loses himself in his own brilliance, in calculations and recalibrations. Steve trains, beating the punching bag until his arms give out and his anger fades. It’s effective, but it leaves him feeling empty.

He’d much rather escape from the world with a warm mouth and wandering calloused hands and heat and passion and love like he’s never known it until their bodies give into the pleasure and give out. It’s then that sleep comes peacefully and the nightmares are kept at bay.


	4. Brick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is two days late, because life and papers and writer's block got in the way, but I'm going to play catch up tomorrow.

Steve had been wrong. Seeing him fly that nuke into space had proved it. But in the aftermath, the clean up and the debriefing, Stark was just as big of a punk as he had been before and Steve couldn’t make sense of it. It seemed like two completely different sets of values had been jammed into the same person. How else could the man who’d put his life on the line to save New York be the same person who was mouthing off to Director Fury, making Barton roll his eyes and Romanoff quietly sigh?

They part ways after Thor takes Loki and the Tesseract back to Asgard and he doesn’t hear from any of them for a long time. If he’s honest with himself, he’s a little disappointed. Part of him had thought that saving the world together would create some sort of bond.

Steve volunteers a lot, clearing rubble or helping construction teams. It gives him something to focus on and it exhausts him to the point he sleeps dreamlessly. Stark Tower is still stands tall. It catches his eye from time to time as he tosses chucks of building into a garbage truck. Once, he thinks he sees a flash of red and gold swooping into one of the windows, but he probably imagined it.

That’s his life for about three months: wake up, work in Manhattan, go back to his little apartment in Brooklyn, and sleep.

He takes a day off, because he needs to just be Steve for a day and not Captain America, the beacon of hope for downtrodden New Yorkers. He curls into his couch with a sketchpad and draws for a while, losing himself in the scratch of pencil against paper. He finds Agent Romanoff taking shape, crouched and ready to take the leap off of his shield. Steve sighs and puts down the sketchbook, staring into space for a moment until there’s a sharp knock on his door.

“This is where Captain America choices to live?” Because of course Stark can’t say hello like a normal person.

He invites him to come live in Stark Tower with him and Bruce and Steve declines. He’s not exactly sure why. Leaving Brooklyn seems wrong and moving in with Stark, who openly dislikes him, doesn’t seem like a particularly appealing option. So he turns him down and Stark leaves, but not before Steve makes note of how odd his casual shrug looks when his eyes are flickering with barely concealed emotion.

Another month or two passes and New York becomes less of catastrophic and more of a messy, but Steve is achingly lonely. Fury has him stop by every month for a psychological evaluation and to ask him again to sign on to work for SHIELD, which he declines every time, but other than that, he has no contact with any familiar faces.

He’s suffered through a lot in his life: illness, poverty, the loss of both parents, harsh words, beatings; but he has never been lonely before this. There was always Bucky. Until there wasn’t. But even then, he had Peggy.

Now they’re all dead.

Steve carries them with him, because a year ago for him they were still alive. He can’t properly grieve, because if he lets them go, if he lets the past die, than he has no one, no one at all who cares about Steve Rogers and not just Captain America.

He doesn’t let it show though. He smiles for photographs and signs autographs for anyone who asks and he continues to volunteer without accepting any payment or thanks.

There’s no tipping point, really, but he hears, “Thanks, Captain America!” one too many times and the next thing he knows he’s standing outside of Stark Towers, being let in by a computerized butler. He feels a surge of warmth he didn’t know he needed when, after a surprised look, Bruce smiles earnestly and says, “Hey, Steve. Glad you made it.”

Stark doesn’t treat him quite as warmly, his dark eyes guarded, but he shows him to his floor and it immediately feels more like home than the apartment he’s been living in for half a year. When Steve goes to thank him, Stark just shrugs.

It turns out that Barton has moved in as well and Romanoff moves in a week after Steve does. Thor takes a while (“The reception’s not great in Asgard,” Stark snarks. “I’m working on it.” Knowing him, he probably is.), but there is a floor in the Tower waiting for him when he eventually touches base in New York.

It’s not easy, not at first. A mismatched group of geniuses, soldiers, gods, and assassins all with odd sleeping habits and neurosis, it’s a miracle in itself that they don’t wind up murdering one another. There are hurt feelings and silly arguments that somehow become big arguments that threaten to tear them all apart. More than once, Steve makes the decision to go back to Brooklyn, but something makes him stay.

They form patterns and slowly these patterns become habit and these habits become life. Clint or Bruce cooks dinner, because they’re best at it. Natasha and Steve bond over movies in the middle of the night and the invitation is opened to anyone who happens to walk by. The best nights are when they all wind up crammed together on the sofas, closer than Steve thinks should be comfortable.

Tony is the last person he gets close to and he can admit that he’s not blameless for that. It takes him months and countless terse exchanges to realize that he’s focusing on all the wrong things. Tony is reckless and irresponsible, yes, but he also looks out for the team in ways that Steve can’t. 

While Tony can’t emotionally help Clint when his night terrors get out of control after a mission abroad, he can create a custom course in their gym to wear in a shiny new bow he builds specifically for Clint. He can’t remember anyone’s favorite foods, but he has Jarvis keep track of it in case they’re all in the mood for Chinese. All these things become clear when art supplies appear in his bedroom one day. It leads to another argument, one Steve isn’t proud of, about how his friendship and his loyalty can’t be bought. He renders Tony speechless momentarily and the taste of pride he always thought he’d experience for the achievement sours at the look of hurt Tony scrambles to hide.

But once he realizes that it’s just Tony’s way, it’s like having a film lifted from over his eyes. Suddenly, the walls that Tony has built seem less like a way to keep everyone out and more of a way to protect himself. With that realization comes an insatiable curiosity. Steve wants to know, no, _needs_ to know what’s behind those walls.

Slowly and very carefully, he’s able to jimmy out a brick, two, three out of those walls until he starts to see the man himself and not just who he pretends to be.

And, honestly, that man that Steve finds is the most beautiful one he’s ever seen.


	5. Sheets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stolen morning moments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Porny prompt is porny.
> 
> Also, I'm still behind, so I may be posting twice tomorrow.

With their strange work schedule and erratic sleeping patterns, it’s rare that they wind up waking up together naturally. Steve wakes up first, as he always does, and he’s curled around Tony’s back, his arm thrown casually over his sleeping form. He pulls his hand in slightly to touch Tony’s stomach gently, feeling the deep breaths as they come. Tony still smells like sex and sweat and it’s mixed with his own smell, musky and masculine with hints of motor oil and coconut. Steve smiles softly as he breathes it in.

Tony starts to stir and immediately pushes back, trying to get closer to Steve, who rewards the gesture with kisses placed on the base of his neck all the way to the tip of his shoulder. He tops it off with a graze of teeth against his skin when Tony pushes his ass back against him, causing Tony to make a small noise of surprise. 

After an awkward moment of fishing under the pillows for the lube they’d discarded the night before, Steve slicks his fingers and gently presses two fingers into his entrance. He’s still loose from the night before, but the insertion makes Tony gasp and curl his fingers into the sheets.

Steve works him open slowly, kissing up his neck until Tony turns his face and meets his lips with his own. Adding a third finger, Steve relishes the noises Tony is starting to make between lazy kisses. It’s when Tony starts to get more aggressive that Steve knows he’s ready and he breaks apart to slick himself and push into him.

They linger for a moment once Steve’s fully inside, Steve breathless from the tightness and the heat and Tony from the feeling of being filled by Steve. Their rhythm starts slowly, pulling out nearly all the way to push all the way back in. Tony moans, a deep guttural sound, and it goes straight through Steve, starting a fire inside him.

They haven’t said their _I love you_ s yet, but Steve knows it’s an act of love when Tony forsakes his own pleasure in favor of gripping onto Steve’s hand where it’s holding his abdomen. Steve presses kisses into Tony’s hair as he increases his tempo, pushing them closer to the edge. Just before he’s about to lose it, he gently scrapes his teeth against Tony’s earlobe, causing him to come with a yelp, Steve following close behind with his eyes shut tight and his face tucked into Tony’s neck.

They don’t move for several minutes, staying curled around each other even as Steve softens and slips out of Tony. Eventually, after what could have been minutes or hours, Tony flips himself over and pushes Steve onto his back, so that he can rest his chin on Steve’s chest.

With a smirk, a sincere one, not the one he gives the press, he says, in a beautifully sleepy rasp, “Good morning.”

Steve shakes his head and smiles. “Good morning, Tony.”


	6. Carol

Tony isn’t one for holidays. He actively avoids thinking about his birthday and he’s completely missed Thanksgiving on more than one occasion. Steve, on the other hand, loves them, especially Christmas. Only because JARVIS has locked him out of the workshop on the grounds of lack of sleep and because there’s nothing on television does Tony agree to wander the city streets with Steve.

Tony takes him to the giant tree at Rockefeller Center and swallows down a laugh at the way Steve’s face lights up. They watch the skaters for a while, because Tony had flat out refused to skate, despite Steve’s many pleas. (Tony would make a fool out of himself in a thousand different ways, but he was not going to fall on his ass in front of all of New York in some cheap, smelly skates, thanks very much.)

They take a walk, past twinkling trees and tourists taking photographs. They walk and they joke and they laugh and they wind up in front of a church where a small choir is singing carols. Tony is more than willing to keep walking, but Steve stops short and Tony walks straight into him. Steve throws out an arm to prevent him from falling without taking his eyes away from the group.

They’re very talented, Tony can tell, but he’s distracted by the way he can feel the heat of Steve’s hand through his jacket as it trails down his back before slipping off and coming to rest so close by his side, brushing Tony’s fingers ever so slightly.

Tony keeps his eyes trained on the chorus, but his attention is elsewhere. He moves his fingers a centimeter closer to Steve’s and Steve responds in kind. His heart is very nearly hammering in his chest as he takes the plunge and laces his fingers through Steve’s.

He sneaks the tiniest glance up at Steve and finds what would be an expression of thoughtful contemplation of the choir if he didn’t know Steve well enough to see the warmth seeping through his tiny smile as he squeezes Tony’s hand ever so slightly.

(If anyone were to call out Tony for donating three thousands dollars to a random church uptown, he’d just tell them he was feeling the Christmas spirit and no one would be the wiser.)


	7. Ghosts

SHIELD gives Steve a folder full of papers detailing the last seventy years and he reads them with increasing amounts of shock and horror. They don’t help. He still feels completely out of place in a world filled with new slang and media and technology.

He goes exploring one day a few weeks after he moves into Stark Tower and he discovers an enormous library, filled with books of every genre. With a little help from Bruce, he picks out the best and most influential literature that he’s missed and a few new releases to gain some insight into modern life. He has an abundance of free time without any world-shaking threats, so he devours book after book, series after series.

“The ones we love never truly leave us,” he reads and it sticks with him. He’d loved the Harry Potter series, even if it did hit a little close to home at times. But that quote above all else stays with him.

It’s true. He hasn’t forgotten any of them, not Bucky, not Peggy, not even Colonel Phillips. Sometimes he’s selfish and wishes he could. It’s too much for one person to bear, being thrown into a familiar yet foreign world and having the memories of the people you lost pulling at you every idle moment.

He doesn’t need much sleep to begin with, but the ghosts chase him of bed and to the kitchen. He needs something to do, anything but staring at the ceiling and trying not to cry. He winds up making a tea, some minty flavor that Natasha had suggested once, and trying the crossword puzzle in the New York Times. He gets one answer, just one, and he looks blankly at the rest of the clues until he gives up and slams the pen down, bringing up a hand to rub at his eyes.

If he’s honest, he hates this. He hates everything about this. He hates the way he feels stupid and how people treat him more like a hero than a person. He hates the flashiness and the lack of patience of today’s society. But most of all, he just misses his friends. He misses having people who know him and love him and he hates the way loneliness creeps up on him at night.

“This is Earth to Captain Rogers. Come in, Captain Rogers. Over.”

He looks up to see Tony, his hand clenched by his mouth around an imaginary walkie-talkie. There’s a smirk on his face, one Steve’s seen a thousand times, but there’s a softness in his eyes, an understanding.

“Are you doing anything right now? Of course you’re not doing anything right now; it’s, like, four o’clock in the morning. I was sort of hoping you’d be up, because I need a big strong man to help me with something that I can’t do myself and Bruce doesn’t really appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night by my genius. Odd, I know, but that’s life, I suppose.”

Steve blinks and takes a second to comprehend Tony’s fast paced babble. “You need a hand?” he says slowly.

Tony shrugs, as if he hadn’t just said as much.

“I do, but I’d hate to take you away from glaring at that newspaper. That’s probably the most attention it’ll get all day.”

If it had been a few weeks ago, Steve probably would have responded unkindly or just walked away, but after living with Tony, he’s starting to understand that his sharp wit isn’t necessarily personal and that isn’t more of a force of habit. He doesn’t really want to think about what made him develop that habit.

“I do my best glaring in the mid-afternoon. I can spare a moment now without it feeling too neglected.”

Tony tilts his head slightly, staring at him oddly, but after a moment, he shrugs again and walks away.

Steve follows him down to his workshop and Tony goes through such elaborate motions to prepare whatever he needed his help with that Steve suspects that Tony had made up needing his help in the first place.

All the same, Steve’s grateful for the distraction.


	8. Sketch

Steve can’t seem to sketch Tony right until he sees him naked. Not in the physical sense. In the way when all pretenses are scrapped and all that’s left is a frightened, broken man gasping for air as he awakes from a nightmare. He pushes Steve away at first on impulse, but he doesn’t relent and soon Tony slumps against him, still shaking. Steve presses a kiss to his forehead and runs a comforting hand up and down his back until his breaths come more deeply and sleep comes over them both.

The next morning, Tony dodges his eyes. Steve doesn’t push it, doesn’t ask the questions that make him burn with curiosity, but he does sit next to him on the edge of the bed and kiss him slowly and intimately.

“Thanks,” Tony says, looking down at the ground, and there’s an ocean of gratitude hidden behind one word and an abundance of discomfort.

Just like that, Steve finds that his hand flies across the page, charcoal staining his fingers as he draws the contrast of harsh and soft that is Tony Stark.


	9. Wall

Steve flies down the street, his legs burning at the intense speed. He’d heard Clint bark, “Stark!” and saw the building’s wall begin to crumble around Iron Man and Madame Mosque alike before he took off.

He uses the swell of panic for a burst of energy as he tears through the debris for Tony, the idiot. He never could listen, especially when it came to sacrificing himself for the sake of the team. But they’d almost had her, they were so close, but Tony had to jump the goddamn gun.

He sees an arm and his heart skitters to a stop, but it’s Mosque’s and he pulls her out from the rubble with little grace and tosses her toward the rest of his team. A minute more of scrambling and he’s beginning to really and truly panic until he sees some rock shifting a bit away.

Leaping toward it, he clears the debris until brilliant red paint becomes visible and he sighs in relief as Iron Man sits up.

“That worked out better than I’d hoped,” says the metallic voice.

“Visor up,” Steve demands, relief giving way to anger.

“But—”

“Visor up now.”

After a moment, Tony obliges, his eyes hard and defiant, as they always are when he braces for unkindness.

Steve grabs hold of the helmet as best as he can and pulls Tony into a bruising kiss before he abruptly pulls back.

“Get your ass to medical,” Steve says, his voice harsh and low, and turns to confer with the SHIELD agents now arriving on the scene.

“Steve—” Tony starts but is silenced by the force of the glare Steve gives him. He goes to medical.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I sat down to write this, I was originally going to end it with a little nudge toward a domination kink on Tony's part, but it didn't feel right. Poor Steve. It must be hard to watch the person you love dealing with suicidal tendencies, even if they're not exactly purposeful.


	10. Never

Tony’s feelings about children are, and have always been, no, nein, net, non, _no_.

It’s not that he doesn’t like kids. He’s actually impressively competent with them. He treats them like little adults, which they respond to eagerly, despite the fact that they don’t understand half of what he’s saying at times.

It’s just that he’s self aware enough to know that he’d be an awful father and he has enough personal experience with that subject that he’d never want to subject another human to it.

But the Avengers are at a meet and greet to promote a more positive public image after a battle with the Red Skull destroys half of midtown and some woman asks Steve to take a picture with her baby. He accepts, because Steve is good like that and always accepts, and the baby coos in his arms, smiling up at him. Steve grins at her, bouncing her softly, saying something silly that Tony can’t quite make out.

A warmth comes over Tony, a warmth like nothing he has ever known, and _no_ ever so slightly transitions toward _maybe_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This prompt may have something to do with this post: http://tonysgoatee.tumblr.com/post/29581590229
> 
> (Shamelessly linking my own tumblr. Whateva whateva I do what I want)


	11. Bells

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I associate bells with churches, so out came this. It talks about God and whether or not He exists, so if that offends you, don't read this. It's more of a Steve-trying-to-make-sense-of-everything type thing than a praise-the-Lord sort of thing, but it you're tweaked by religion, I'd suggest skipping this chapter.

On Bucky’s birthday, Steve goes back to Brooklyn, back to the small church he’d grown up attending. They haven’t renovated it too much, so it’s still familiar in a way. The priests are all new and the walls have a fresh coat of paint, but the statues and alter are still the same.

He slips into one of a pew in the center of the church, clasps his hands, and looks up at the stained glass. Is it sacrilegious to wonder if God exists while in a church? He doesn’t understand how this could have been God’s plan for him: that a small, pathetic boy would find a scientist who would turn him into physical perfection and then be frozen in the ice only to awake seventy years later.

Honestly, he’s not sure that he wants to believe in a god that would rip him away from everything he knew and loved, that would let him get within inches of saving his best friend only to let him slip and fall down, down, down.

It’s not that he’s miserable. This century has been a challenge, but he’s made friends and found a lover that he really, truly adores. It’s that it still hurts. He thinks it will always hurt. The guilt will never fade, not really.

Or maybe all of this was a punishment. Maybe he did something wrong and this was his penance. But what could he have done to deserve this?

Tony slides next to Steve on the pew, close enough that he can feel his body heat. He doesn’t ask how he found him; he’s known Tony long enough to know that, even without the GPS installed on his StarkPhone, the man has his ways.

“Hey,” he says, shooting him a glance.

“Hey,” Tony replies, studying him with warm eyes before he turns toward the front of the church and folds his hands.

They sit in silence for a long while. Tony doesn’t try to touch him or hold his hand. He knows it’s not what Steve wants or needs. He’s just a warm presence next to him and Steve appreciates that more than he could ever articulate.


	12. Diner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their first date doesn't go quite as smoothly as they would have liked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. I stared at this prompt for about and hour and had no idea what to do with it. I tried about three different things before this little guy popped out.

For their first date, Tony takes them to an extravagant restaurant, where they’re shown to a lush, private back room. Despite valiant attempts, it’s dreadfully awkward. Steve feels completely out of place in such an elaborate atmosphere and Tony slips into his media mask, which Steve loathes, because it’s so far from the person he’s grown so close to.

“This isn’t working,” Steve says, unfurling his hands from his napkin for the thirteenth time.

Tony goes stiff for a moment, bald panic in his eyes, before he controls his features again. “Right. Well. We gave it a shot. No one can say we didn’t. I can’t say I’m surprised, but—”

“What? Tony, no,” Steve says, leaning forward to cover Tony’s hand with his own. “I mean this.” He gestures around him. “This whole place. It’s not you; it’s not me. Neither of us is comfortable here.”

Tony breaks eye contact, a tell that Steve’s struck a chord.

“Hey,” Steve says warmly, brushing a thumb over the back of Tony’s hand. “You don’t have to impress me. I’m impressed enough by you already. All this isn’t necessary.”

Tony meets his eyes again, studying him for a moment, before he smiles, just a little bit.

“Cool,” Tony says. “I was dealing with the idiots on the board all day and I’m kind of over being in a suit. Wanna ditch the jacket and tie and go to the diner?”

He doesn’t have to specify. There’s a diner two blocks away from the Tower that makes great burgers and Tony and Steve are frequent patrons, stopping there for a quick bite or just to get rid of cabin fever.

“I think that’d be better,” Steve answers with a smile.

So Tony throws down a few bills, far more than is necessary, Steve is sure, and they take the car back to the Tower.

“Don’t tell me it went that badly,” Clint says, frowning at them when they walk in.

“We’re only back for a second,” Steve replies, cutting off whatever retort was on the tip of Tony’s tongue. He shucks his suit jacket, dress shirt, and tie, hanging them neatly, before pulling on jeans and a plaid button down, rolling up the sleeves to his elbows.

He meets Tony in the lobby and feels the tension in his back release a bit when he sees Tony one of his band tee shirts and dark jeans. It had felt too much like he was out with Tony Stark TM before, but the man now slinging a grin at him was just Tony and that was something Steve was much more comfortable with.

“Ready, O Captain, my Captain?” Tony says, his eyes bright.

“Just Steve,” he answers before taking Tony’s face in his hands and kissing him. Tony presses back immediately. After a moment, Steve has to pull away while he still can. He grins a little goofily at Tony, who looks only slightly less dazed than the first time they’d kissed.

“Let’s go,” Steve says, twining their fingers together.


	13. Moth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint gets injured and no one handles it well.

Steve sits on the couch, staring blankly at the wall, as Tony flits around the room. He paces. He stops to look out the window. He picks up his tablet. He puts it back down. He paces.

“Tony, stop,” Steve says.

Tony’s head snaps toward him, but his eyes are unfocussed. “Sorry.”

Natasha stalks into the room, her face completely shut down. 

“Any word?” Steve asks. She shakes her head sharply.

“He’s still in surgery. Should be for at least another hour.” She leaves as quickly as she came.

Steve sighs and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. Those creatures had been the fodder of nightmares, completely covered in dark fur, save for their dark, soulless eyes and their long, sharp nails. Clint had been outnumbered and, though he was able to take down seven of them with minimal damage, the eighth had sunk his claws deep into his back, shredding skin and muscle alike. His right arm had been rendered nearly useless and he’d fainted from blood loss just a few minutes later.

Tony’s face is tight with anger and self-hatred.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Steve tells him. “There was nothing you could have done.”

“Jarvis warned me that he was surrounded,” Tony answers, his voice terse and low. “I should have helped. I could have stopped this from happening.”

“If you had helped him, Natasha would probably be dead right now.”

Despite the truth of the statement, Tony shakes his head viciously, his jaw tensing.

“There’s a seventy-three point four percent chance he’ll never be able to shoot again,” Tony spits.

“Which means there’s still a twenty six point six percent chance he will.”

Tony glares at Steve.

“Those odds are shit and you know it.”

“It’s better than him being dead,” Steve snaps and sighs again. Tony’s beating himself up enough; he doesn’t need Steve taking out his unhappiness on him as well.

Tony clams up, expression going completely blank, and begins to pace.

“Tony, come here.”

Tony keeps pacing, his mind a thousand miles away.

“Tony, come here,” Steve repeats a little louder, catching his attention and opening his arms. Tony walks over to him hesitantly and lets Steve pull him down into his lap. He tucks his head into Steve’s neck as Steve encircles him with his arms. “It’s not your fault.”

Tony only sighs. Clint and Tony have a razor sharp banter going on and, despite Tony insisting he would just let Hawkeye fall one of these days, Steve knows he cares about Clint very much. He cares about all the Avengers, though he’d deny it until he was blue in the face.

Steve presses a kiss to Tony’s forehead and tries to push away his own worries. There was no point in panicking until after they were certain of the outcome of the surgery and, even then, there was only planning left to do: how Clint would heal or what they would do if he couldn’t.

For now, all he could do is distract himself with the warmth of Tony’s skin and the comfort of his being until Natasha came to relay the doctor’s report.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clint winds up being fine, don't worry. Tony chews him out something fierce for scaring them all, which results in Clint snapping back, which results in the Pudding Incident, which they're legally not allowed to talk about. 
> 
> Clint is put on rest for six months, so the muscles in his back can heal, which he follows for about a week. Tony builds a sort of sling contraption that minimizes the movement of the muscles in his back and a new bow that's less high tech but easier to use with an injury. 
> 
> They bicker a lot, but at the end of the day, they're bros and bros don't let bros get disregard Medical without a solid excuse for why they're allowed to do whatever they want. Steve catches them fist bumping as they leave behind a red faced nurse in the medical wing, but they go back to pretending they don't care about each other as soon as they realize Steve is watching. Idiots.


	14. Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite an epic battle with catastrophic damage, they are still alive, but Steve can't let himself believe it until Tony is in his arms again.

Steve is already waiting for Tony in his bedroom when Tony makes his way over from the landing strip. Immediately, Steve rushes toward him. He reaches out to grab Tony by the neck and drags him into a bruising kiss. Tony kisses back greedily, wrapping his arms around his neck.

In a surge that’s far smoother than it should be, Steve pulls Tony up, Tony’s legs wrapping around his waist, without breaking the kiss. His large hands grip Tony’s ass for support and Tony moans into his mouth.

Super soldier muscle memory kicks in and Steve easily walks them over to the bed with his eyes closed, still viciously kissing Tony, until his knee hits the soft mattress and he drops him onto the bed. Tony hisses as Steve crawls over him and half of Steve’s brain panics, because he saw the hit that caused that pain, but Tony reaches up and pulls Steve back down against his mouth and all his coherent thoughts scatter.

They’re too frantic for foreplay or sweet words or playful nips. They kiss until they can’t breathe, until Tony is groaning from the friction of their grinding and he begins to strip them both. They rip their clothes off, breaking skin to skin contact only momentarily to pull off pants and socks and then they’re on each other again, pressed fully against one another.

Tony’s hand hits the bedside table hard and then scrambles to open the drawer and find the bottle of lube to press into Steve’s hand. Immediately, Steve slicks his fingers, entering Tony with one finger and a forced gentleness. Tony whines at the breach and Steve moves up to kiss his swollen lips while he stretches him. 

He inserts a second finger and bites down on Tony’s lips gently before swiping it over with his tongue. He scissors his fingers, trying to be as efficient as possible, before adding a third and Tony begins to buck back against his fingers. Steve groans.

“Please, Steve,” Tony says, sounding wrecked. “I’m ready, I’m ready. I need you now. I need you inside me please.”

Steve knows Tony is lying, that his body could use more prep, but the desperation in Tony’s voice and his own burning need outweighs the guilt. He slicks himself quickly, gasping at the pleasure of the contact, and sets himself up at Tony’s entrance.

Tony is so tight, impossibly tight. He has to work his way in, pushing in and out gradually, until he’s buried to the hilt and Tony’s hands are clawing at his shoulders. The adrenaline of the battle is still coursing through his veins and he starts at a brutal pace. Tony responds with a strangled shout that turns into a rough moan.

He pulls Tony close, wrapping one arm around his waist for leverage and the other around his shoulders, and tucks his face into his neck. Steve is alive. Tony is alive. No one is dead. He can feel the flush of his skin, the hot breath on his cheek. They survived. They’re alive; they’re alive; they’re alive.

“I love you, Tony,” Steve whispers into his collarbone. “I love you so fucking much. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Fuck, Tony.”

"Fuck, _Steve_ ," Tony moans and wraps a hand into his hair, clenching his legs more firmly around him, giving him a better ability to hit the spot that makes Tony’s breath hitch.

Steve isn’t going to last, not with Tony so tight and so near to him, and he pounds into him harder than he should, but Tony comes with a shout, tightening around him, and Steve follows moments after.

It takes effort not to collapse onto Tony, but it’s better than pressing on already darkening bruises. Steve keens over sideways, pulling out of him with a slight gasp, and flops onto his side. Tony reaches out for him, pulling them closer together.

Reaching up a shaking hand to push sweat-dampened hair off of Tony’s forehead, he gives a weak smile in response to the dark, searching look in Tony’s eyes. Tony leans forward and Steve meets him halfway in a soft but passion-filled kiss.

“I love you,” Steve says when they break away. He doesn’t put into words how scared he was or how grateful he is that they made it out alive, but he knows Tony understands.

“I love you,” Tony repeats, his words just as loaded.

They hold each other a little too tightly and let exhaustion pull them into sleep.


	15. Kept

Steve is down in Tony’s workshop, drawing how he imagines Jarvis would look as a human. Tall and lean, Steve thinks, with a no-nonsense expression, but with warm eyes.

There’s a clattering noise that makes Steve jerk slightly in alarm.

“Dummy, I swear, one of these days I’m going to take you apart and turn you into a toaster or something useful,” Tony barks at the robot, who chirps sadly and hangs his little metal head in what looks like shame. “Back to your charging station and don’t knock over anything else.”

As Dummy wheels away, a familiar flash of red catches his eye.

“What’s that?” Steve asks, standing and walking over to the mess Dummy made.

Tony follows Steve’s finger and his jaw tightens.

“That,” he says, pulling the red object from the pile. “That would be a prototype for your shield.”

Tony offers it to Steve, who takes it and gingerly runs a hand across the surface.

“How… Why do you have this?”

Tony sighs, looking uncomfortable. “Come with me.”

They take the elevator down fourteen flights and they exit onto a floor Steve’s never seen before. He follows Tony through room after room before finally stopping at a door that looks more secure than the previous. After an eye and hand scan, he hears the lock click and Tony gives him a look that seems almost reluctant before swinging open the door and walking inside.

Steve is surprised to find that it’s not a particularly high tech room. It looks very average, so unlike the rest of the Tower, littered with cardboard boxes. One is slightly open and—

“Is that my helmet?” Steve asks, walking quickly toward it and pulling at the flaps to reveal that it is. He picks it up, rubbing a thumb across the cool metal, before looking for Tony for answers. Tony is leaning against the door, barely in the room.

“After you went under, Dad came into possession of all your things. Don’t ask me how; he had his ways.”

“And he kept them?” Steve asks and begins to look through the rest of the boxes. A bow one of the dancers had given him, books, clothes, all outdated now.

“Obviously,” Tony says. “They told you that it was his expedition that found you, right? Well, I mean, technically it was mine, but he started the whole thing, I just kept it going.”

“They told me.” He uncovers his old sketchbook and the feel of the leather beneath his fingertips brings tears to his eyes. He thought it’d been lost forever.

“I guess you made quite an impression on dear old Dad,” Tony says and Steve doesn’t miss the bitterness in his voice.

“You kept all this,” he says slowly, standing and facing Tony. One thing he’s noticed about Tony is that he has a very obvious tell. Whenever he’s really, truly uncomfortable, he’ll break eye contact, if only for a moment. Steve has seen people sling vicious words at him, accusing him of being a fraud, a jerk, a liar, a murderer, without Tony blinking an eye. But whenever something hits a little too close to home, Tony will glance down before looking up with a fierceness in his gaze.

“It’s not like I didn’t have the space to keep it,” Tony says evenly, meeting his eyes again. “What else was I going to do with it?”

“Sell it?” Steve offers, opening the worn pages delicately. “Throw it out?”

All his sketches are still there, as if the forties were only months away instead of years and years. The look on Peggy’s face as he’d climbed into the van, Bucky’s smirk, the outline of the Howling Commandos. It makes something deep in Steve’s heart ache.

“Throw out Captain America’s things?” Tony replies. “That’d be sacrilege.” There’s a smirk on Tony’s face that doesn’t meet his eyes. After a breath, he adds, “Look, take whatever you want. Or don’t. Toss it all, if you want. Or give it to the poor. Or sew sweaters for kittens out of your old clothes. I don’t care. Do whatever you want. It’s all yours anyway.”

Steve nods numbly, not looking away from the page.

“I’m gonna—I’ll just leave you to that then,” Tony says uncomfortably and turns to leave.

“Tony?”

“Yeah, Cap?”

“Thank you,” he says sincerely. Tony just shrugs.

“Sure.”

And then Steve is alone.

He looks down at the sketchpad again and turns the page. Howard Stark grins mischievously up at him from the paper. Steve runs his fingers across the drawing lightly, his lips tightening ever so slightly at the corners.

He didn’t think they were that close. They’d been friendly enough and Howard had provided everything Steve needed and more. But he’d kept his things, even after Steve had been considered dead for decades. Tony had too, despite the fact that he’d never known Steve and he and Howard clearly didn’t get along.

It just goes to show you that Starks are more than what meets the eye, Steve supposes.


	16. Saint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally a Tony feels

To say that Captain America had a presence in Tony’s life even from an early age would be an understatement. The ghost of him lingered around his absent father, in the stories he would tell and the dark looks that crossed over his face. Tony grew up thinking that Captain America was a perfect person, something he would always aspire toward but never achieve. That is, until he gave up trying and went in the opposite direction entirely. It’s acceptable to fail if you’re not trying, right?

So when they find him under the ice, alive, because what else could Captain America be, Tony has mixed feelings. There’s undoubtedly an underlying excitement at meeting the man he grew up idolizing, but there’s also a vicious streak in him that hopes that he is nothing like the stories he told, just so his father would be wrong.

But Captain fucking America is every bit as perfect as his dear old dad made him out to be. The man is basically a saint, the way he fights for what’s right and the way the light makes a golden halo of his hair. And he is every bit as disappointed in Tony as his father was.


	17. East

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential trigger for implied violence. Nothing is mentioned explicitly.

It’s not enough. It’s not enough. Tony’s sent out a hundred emails, funneled money into the right charities, set up press conferences. It’s out of his hands and that makes him entirely uncomfortable.

This world is broken and so is he, so if anyone should be able to fix it, to make it better, it would be him, because no one knows fucked up like he does.

But he can’t. It’s too much. He’s been wasting time making phones and tablets and shit that people don’t actually need when there are a thousand other things he could be doing to make the world better.

He’s selfish, so fucking selfish, but he’s going to try harder, he’s going to make things better.

He doesn’t notice the time flying by, but, after what must be a significant amount of time, a pair of warm arms encircle his waist from behind and that’s rather hard to ignore.

“Have you slept?” comes Steve’s warm voice in his ear, before the man plants a kiss at the base of Tony’s neck.

“No,” Tony says, already distracted again, trying to find where he left off when Steve scattered his thoughts.

“You’ve been up all night?” Steve steps away and no, wait, the warmth of his chest was nicer than he realized.

“I guess.”

“Tony, come on. Let’s go to bed.”

“I’m—”

“It can wait.”

“No, it—”

“Yes, it can.” And there’s Steve’s hand, warm and certain around his. “Jarvis, save his progress.”

“Of course, sir.”

Steve all but pulls him to bed, despite the fact that it’s the morning and he pulls Tony close once they’re settled under the covers. Tony rests his head against Steve’s chest.

The sun is rising again, shedding light over this messed up world. Who knows what will happen today? There are an infinite amount of horrors Tony’s mind can think up in a matter of moments.

But then Steve’s hand brushes against the hair at the nape of his neck and there’s a kiss being planted to his forehead. For one quiet moment, everything is okay. He pushes up slightly and kisses Steve fully on the mouth. They linger there for a moment, just existing with each other, before Tony pulls away and settles down again.

There are still people like Steve in this world. And as long as there are people like Steve, things will be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, that shooting in Connecticut left me and most of the country pretty shaken up. It's really scary how many shootings there have been this week and it's just horrible that someone would kill children. Little children with so much left to live for. Their poor families.
> 
> It's finals week, so that's why last chapter was late. It's super stressful as it is and with everything that's going on, my writing's just gone really dark.


End file.
